Early Help in Lancashire

The vision of all partner organisations working with children and families in Lancashire is to improve children’s lives by working in partnership to raise aspirations, build achievement and protect the most vulnerable.

This is based on the belief that:

• Children, young people and families develop resilience if there are protective factors in place such as: a positive relationship with an adult; good literacy and communication skills; good school attendance; and, parents in or actively seeking/ready for work
• Children’s needs are best met when help is offered in a universal setting within a socially mixed group and early on when problems start to emerge
• Children and young people’s needs are best met when addressed in the context of the whole family, meaning that parents/carers/siblings’ needs are addressed with consent as part of a holistic and integrated Early Help response

Early Help services should support and strengthen families so that they can thrive.

We follow the Working Well with Children and Families Guidance

Lancashire Children’s Services Safeguarding Hub (MASH)-the single point of contact to support the child and family.

We use the Continuum of Need to establish the level of support needed. Please see diagram below:

Lancashire CSAP (Children’s Safeguarding Assurance Partnership) website:

The CSAP website is full of useful safeguarding and Child Protection information.

Hillside's Early Help Role

Day to Day Support

Most families, most of the time, can get on with their lives quite happily with little or no outside help. If they need help it is usually provided by universal services, such as schools.

Focused Pastoral Support

All families can have times, however, when difficulties arise and they either may not recognise it or may not know how to start putting things right. Schools play a role in supporting families to address these difficulties through more focused pastoral support, which might include bringing in support via an external agency. 

Early Help Assessment

The Early Help Assessment is an intervention with a family to gather, explore and analyse with them information about all aspects of the child's (and their family’s) life and then to identify areas where change will address support needs and positively impact on their lived experiences.

This is recorded on an Early Help Assessment form which includes the family’s Early Help Plan.

Working alongside families from a holistic, strength-based approach when areas of support are first identified will stop escalation towards crisis and the need for more intensive and specialist intervention.

Through the Early Help Assessment, Plan, and reviews via Team Around the Family meetings, the wider partnership of services can provide families with the right support at the right time.

The Early Help Assessment and Plan features a family radar. The family radar is linked to the cycle of change and will help to identify which areas of support the family need the most. By completing a family radar, we are trying to get the families we work with to understand at what point of the cycle of change they are at.

The following five commitments are the core elements to Hillside Community Primary School’s Early Help Offer.

By implementing these commitments Hillside Community Primary School aims to ensure:

• Pupils, parent/carers and staff are clear on the Early Help support available through the school
• Clarity for partners, supporting improved multi-agency working
• Delivery approaches of Early Help support for more vulnerable families are up to date with local offers
• Commitment to the personal development and well-being strand of the Ofsted Framework
• All pastoral support is done to support the whole child.

If you feel an Early Help Assessment would benefit you and your family, please speak to Mrs Addy.